Category: Entertainment

2012 is just around the corner! Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on the past year. Done? Me too. Now let’s reflect on everything that’s coming up on 30 years old (other than Philip and Jenny). In 1982, New Wave reached a peak, several genre-shaping sci-fi and fantasy flicks were released, and the personal computer was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine.

1982 in Music:

Survivor – Eye of the Tiger

Michael Jackson – the album Thriller, which included Thriller, Beat It, and Billie Jean

Madonna’s debut –Everybody

Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance

Men At Work – Down Under

Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen

Modern English – I Melt With You

Prince – 1999

The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Joan Jett – I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll

Whitesnake – Here I Go Again

John Cougar – Jack & Diane

Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf

Cats debuts on Broadway

(hot sweetrolls, that list of tracks just exploded my brain with its awesomeness, gimme a sec, okay let’s move on)

1982 in Film:

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Blade Runner

Tron

The Dark Crystal

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Kahn

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Rocky III

Conan the Barbarian

The Beastmaster

The Thing

The Secret of NIMH (but let’s be honest, that movie was seriously terrible)

This is what happens when producers who brought us “Two and Half Men” decided that a sitcom with beauty and geeks would be a whole lot funnier than that reality show “Beauty and the Geek”. But funny is a relative term, and in this case, you’d probably have to know geeky trivia, like when precisely Spock had a beard, or why 42 is the meaning of life.

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special information update – Google just BOUGHT OUT YouTube for $1.65 billion. This is Google’s largest acquisition, and one of the largest Web 2.0 acquistions to date. Buy your Google stock now if you hadn’t already!!

YouTube is the most popular Internet video site, with more than 100 million videos watched a day, and Google’s own Google Video couldn’t even compete with that. Now it is assumed that YouTube and Google Video will merge content and features. This is BIG news, folks!

Update: That’s $1.65 billion IN STOCK, in other words, Google traded about 1.25% of its own shares for 100% of YouTube shares. And because such a massive deal is likely to make Google’s stock go up in value, they didn’t really even pay anything for the acquisition. Amazing!

Randy Garsee, the top news anchor in Southern Arizona, was apparently fired on Tuesday. Rumor has it that he sent an email critical of KOLD-13 management. I tend to prefer Guy Atchley and KGUN-9, when I actually watch the news, but I feel like Randy Garsee (and Kris Pickle, who left a few months ago) is (or was) the face of Tucson news.

There are two very good things that come out of this situation:

1. Reporters should, by nature, challenge everything. Including authority. If KOLD management doesn’t understand that, then I’m not interested in watching their (boring, censored, totalitarian) newscast. Randy Garsee is now a reporter/anchor who I can cautiously trust. He challenges his authority at work, so maybe he is inclined to challenge any authority of wrongdoing…

2. Randy Garsee is a blogger. Blogs may not still be around in 20 years, but they will have evolved into some form of mass Internet communication that also replaced the need for traditional news sources. I expect to see more freelance reporting through the blog medium in the near future.

The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) is running an ad intended for Congresscritters, debunking the RIAA’s efforts for regulation on Satellite radio.

These qoutes from past RIAA/MPAA representatives, on previous technologies, are great for persuading anyone away from DRM (digital rights/restrictions management).

“I forsee a marked deterioration in American music…and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue – or rather by vice – of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines…” – John Philip Sousa on the Player Piano (1906)

“The public will not buy songs that it can hear almost at will by a brief manipulation of the radio dials.” – Record Label Executive on FM Radio (1925)

“But now we are faced with a new and very troubling on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the videocassette recorder…” – MPAA on the VCR (1982)

“When the manufacturers hand the public a license to record at home…not only will the songwriter tie a noose around his neck, not only will there be no more records to tape [but] the innocent public will be made an accessory to the destruction of four industries.” -ASCAP on the Cassette Tape (1982)

Those funny folks. And obviously the Player Piano came and went without destroying the industry, the tape came and went without destroying the industry. Satellite and digital radio are quickly replacing FM. And digital files are beginning to replace CDs. The Industry always wants to squeeze as much money from its sales, and they want full control of the all creative content. Here’s the deal. As consumers, we should be able to:

Buy CDs/DVDs and listen/watch them on any device, without restriction

Make copies to listen on our computers, watch on our portable televisions, listen to on our iPods, etc. (we paid for the material; we should not have to pay for different copies on every device we own)

Make backup copies (we paid for the material; we should not have to repay if it gets destroyed or lost)

Record live television/radio so we can watch it on our schedules. Sorry, but when microwaves are beamed into my home, I’m free to do with those microwaves whatever I want for personal use in my home.

Did you know?

The RIAA wants to make it illegal to record digital/analog copies of CDs, even for backup purposes?